A few months ago, I received a catalog from MacMall and noticed that they
were having a closeout on some Macs (including color monitor and keyboard)
at a great price. We've been paying almost $1600 for LC580s and these Macs
were around $700 cheaper. OK, the hard drive was a little smaller, only 4
mb of RAM and the CDROM was external and slower, but so what. My budget was
getting low and I could buy almost 17 sets for the same price as 10 from my
Apple. educational dealer.
I called MacMall to verify that they had the equipment in stock and was
told that they were not allowed to sell these items to a school. They could
sell it to me as an individual but could not even deliver it to a school.
Why not? Apple wouldn't let them. I was furious. Why should Apple not let
their best customers save some money? I made some calls to Apple but only
got the run-around. Frankly, it sounds illegal to me, but if it's not it
certainly is not good business.
I'm curious to know how any of you other Mac schools out there feel about
my experience Apple's policies. My next years' budget calls for the
purchase of 150 computers and I'm considering making 50 of them Intel-based
with Win 95 or Win NT. If this is how Apple is going to treat its best
market then it can't hurt to be multi-platform these days. Maybe they'll
start getting the message.
Don Ross
Don Ross
Director of Technology
North Shore School District
dross@interramp.com